Supporting Community Health from every Municipal Department  

It’s Community Health Improvement Week, a time when we recognize and honor partnerships and individuals working to improve community health. These partnerships may often look like programs in hospitals and health systems, but the role of municipal government in community health is ripe for opportunity.  

As our understanding of community health becomes more holistic, municipal departments can each find opportunity to share their insights on health. Whether your board of health wants to work with schools on educational materials about health and nutrition, your recreation department wants to promote active community events, or your DPW wants to promote the benefits of urban trees in mitigating dangerous heat events, every department can contribute to community health.  

So often municipal departments get stuck in their silos and miss the chance to collaborate and find innovative solutions that cross department lines. Pulling departments out of their silos for cross-departmental projects like community health not only builds connections, but it also builds resiliency in your system.  

Here are some quick tips for tackling community health from every department:  

• Implement regular meetings with all department heads to allow space to brainstorm new ideas  
• Connect with your community members to learn about their community health concerns 
• Work with organizations in your community to support innovation already happening 

At Capital Strategic Solutions, we know how to break departments out of their silos and encourage collaboration. Our municipal experts come from every department and have years of experience in evaluating organizational flow and work processes. If your community could use more cross collaboration on holistic topics like community health, check out our services to see how we can assist.